


Sleep on the Floor

by angstyninja



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bittersweet Ending, Character Study, Falling In Love, M/M, Young Duck Newton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 16:51:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18183221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstyninja/pseuds/angstyninja
Summary: After a particularly bad vision, Duck leaves Kepler with the intention of getting as far away possible. To go somewhere his fate couldn't find him. Indrid can't stay in one place too long, both his visions and his identity keep him on the road. A chance encounter means perhaps neither of them would have to take their journeys alone.





	Sleep on the Floor

Duck couldn’t breathe.

  
His chest convulsed in a desperate attempt to draw air into his lungs, but there was nothing but thick, heavy smoke. He didn’t even have the breath to scream when one of the tall, ancient pine fell, smothering in the flames. Could not even move out of it’s path, feeling the hot pain of the fire licking at his skin.

  
Animals were moving in panicked herds around him, rushing to escape the endless inferno and he wanted nothing more but to move with them. To get away from this place. Yet, there was nothing but dark, black smoke and the hot burn of the flames. He had to do something, but he couldn’t move.  
Duck was paralyzed.

  
Around him, the Monongahela burned.

  
26/06/2002 4:39am

  
In the quiet of the night, Duck packs his bags.

  
He can’t pinpoint when he pulled the long forgotten backpack from its spot collecting dust in the back of his closet, nor does he remember when he made his decision to get out his bed. What he can remember is the dream that had shaken him from his slumber. A nightmare. It was not a vision, or at least he hoped it wasn’t, would pray if he had any faith left in him. Instead, he mechanically rolls up his clothing in tight coils he’d learned in scouts, and does not think about it.

  
In his bag he has nothing but clothes and his wallet, the bare necessities. He resolutely keeps his back turned to his clunky flip phone, still plugged into the wall beside of his bed. The thought of his sister made him hesitate in his doorway, but he slings his backpack over his shoulder and forces himself not to look back.

  
He leaves his keys in his mailbox, there is nothing in that apartment he couldn’t live without anyway, and as he steps out from the apartment complex, the hot summer air hits him in a wave. It was stifling enough to make him lick his lips at the thought of the air conditioner he was leaving behind. A reminder that he could just go back inside. There was no reason to throw all this away. Nothing but the cold feeling deep in his veins that recoils at the very thought of staying here. The one that tells him that he needs to get away. He trusts this feeling.

  
And so, he goes, walks slowly down the streets he’d walked his entire life, trying not to feel the heaviness of guilt as he passes each house, each neighbour, each friend and enemy and everything in between. Tries not to wonder if they’ll even notice that he’s gone, wonders for too long about if his parents will. Wonders and wonders until he finds himself at the edge of town, staring down the sign that happily announces “Welcome to Kepler! Population: 5000”.

  
He stares at it a moment, and then, to no one but himself, whispers

  
“Four-thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine,”

  
and then he runs.

  
He runs until Kepler is swallowed by the overwhelming mass of the Monongahela National Forest and he can think of nothing but the burning in his chest. A burning unlike that of the oppressive heat of the nightmare that still whispers in the back of his mind.  
He passes no one on his way out. Too late for travellers, too early for locals. There is no one to see him leave but the trees, waving him goodbye under the sway of the sweet summer wind.

  
15/06/2002 9:57am

  
If there was one thing that Duck regretted leaving in his apartment at this point in his journey, it was his water bottle. He was only one town over and was already debating just going back home to his air conditioning. If he was going to continue moving on foot, he was not going to last very long, chosen one blood or not.

  
His haven came in the form of a small general store promising ice cream in the back, avoiding eye contact with the bored teenager behind the counter as he drifts down the aisles. Most of the food here was junk, candy and chips, mixed in with some practical supplies.

  
Duck turns his head without thinking when the bell rings to signal a new patron’s entry, and then finds himself unable to look away.

The man is tall. Almost too tall, unconsciously ducking his head as he steps under the doorframe. And this wasn’t even the strangest thing about him; despite looking to be in his twenties, his hair was whiter than a dove’s feather, pulled into a low ponytail. He meets Duck’s eyes briefly as he scans the store, and Duck, as every rational man does, immediately turns away from him and walks straight into the candy display.

  
Duck mumbles an apology reflexively as the display gives a disgruntled rattle, reaching out to stop it from teetering. It settles, and when Duck looks back up, the man has moved into one of the aisles, paying no mind to his blundering. Small mercies. Duck was not sticking around though, he could come back through and get his drink after this man took his leave. Instead, he pushed through the heavy glass doors and back outside.

  
The sun is hot, but the ice cream is cheap and Duck settles easily into one of the wooden chairs under the shade of the store’s porch. He’d bought a large cone of mint chocolate to sooth his otherwise empty stomach. Perhaps not his healthiest decision, but it was the one he was making.

  
There’s not many other people around, and if not for the slowly melting cone in his hand, Duck might’ve allowed his heavy eyes to fall closed. Instead, he watches the people who drift down the streets, in groups or alone, each moving with the steady pace of someone who has somewhere to be. Voices carry around him, bringing with it snippets of conversations, here and then gone, drowning in the steady hum of the cicadas, the whisper of cars rushing passed.

  
Duck is startled when the man, holding his own cone, drops inelegantly into the seat across from him and pulls out a map from his pants pocket. It takes him a minute to unfold the entire thing and when its spread out over the glass table Duck can see that it is of the entire country. Spinning it around to face Duck, the man begins to speak without introduction.

  
“You’re from around here,” he announces, gesturing vaguely at the area around them. “Please tell where on earth here is.”

  
He speaks more gently then Duck expects, voice lilting, like the whisper of the wind through the trees. This does not sooth Duck’s nerves though, shaken by the suddenness of the conversation.

  
“Uh, sure thing man,” Duck stammers, shaken by this man’s weirdly accurate assumption. Tracing the outline of the Monongahela Forest with his finger, he points to an unmarked spot. “We’re here, in Jasmine.”

  
This close, Duck can see careful cursive markings for dozens of small cities not only along the Monongahela, but also across the entirety of the United States. They ran no clear pattern, as if this man was moving with no plan but to see as much as possible. To let the wind pull his sails.

  
Envy ran through Duck’s veins at all the places his man had been, but his eyes were drawn back to where his finger was as the man begins to write. He circles the area and without turning the map, scratches in the name of the city just where Duck had pointed. Beneath this new marking, Duck could see Kepler’s name written in a faded, red ink. Not a recent visit then.

  
It was not the only one written in red ink. While the majority were penned in with a dark black, Duck traces the sporadic usage of red pen with his eyes. Point Pleasant, New York City, Dallas, San Diego and then finally, Kepler. The man pulls the map away before Duck can think much of it, folding it carefully and tucking it back into his pocket. Raises his eyes from the table, Duck is shaken by the sight of the man is biting directly into the frozen cream like it’s cotton candy.

  
“Thank you for your help,” the man says, as if he was not committing a culinary sin.

  
“No problem, dude,” Duck manages around his own bewilderment.

  
“It’s Indrid,” he tells him, wrinkling his nose. “Indrid Cold.”

  
Sheepishly remembering his manners, Duck holds his hand out for a shake, trying not to feel self-conscious about how much Indrid’s hand dwarfed his own. He begins to say his own name but stumbles, struck by the realization that they were not in Kepler. This was a stranger. This man would never call him by his old name if he never told it to him.

  
“Aw fuck, wait, jus-just let me try that again. I’m uh- shit, you know what? Just call me Duck,” he says, face growing hotter with each passing second. “I mean- hell, it’s a nickname?”

  
“A nickname?” Indrid echoes, and if embarrassment could kill, Duck would be a dead man. “It’s nice to meet you,” Indrid pauses, looking down at their still clasped hands. “Duck.”

  
Tearing his hand away it horror, Duck shrinks down and wishes he could disappear into the plush cushions beneath him. There’s a beat of silence as Indrid idly bites into his ice cream cone again, playing with the leather band around his wrist. Just when Duck thought Indrid would realize his mistake of trying to talk to him, he says

  
“I’m heading up to Kinsbrook for a swim after this, if you want a ride out of town?”

  
Kinsbrook was a town only a half an hour from here, and it’s not as though he’d never done it before, he used to wave down cars all the time as a teenager. This felt different though, he was alone, and he could practically hear every lecture his mother had given him about not going anywhere with strangers. The cicadas sung around them, and Duck knew the day would only get hotter.

  
“Yeah,” he says, brushing caution off his back like a pesky fly. “That would be great actually.”

  
Indrid nods, like he expected this answer.

  
15/06/2002 10:48am

  
As they leave the store behind and enter the parking lot, Indrid leads him steadily to a what was more rust than it was truck. Easily as old as they were, it was red, dried mud splattered over the doors as if this thing hadn’t been washed in the past decade.  
Indrid opens the door for Duck, makes as if he’s about to gesture for him to throw his bag in but ends up halting half way through, staring at the mess of his front seats with a sort of bemused remembrance. Duck sneaks a glance around his shoulder, finding the entire front of the truck was covered in paper; maps and wrappers and receipts, all in varying states of crumpled.

  
"I've been on the road for a while," Indrid admits as he sweeps the wrappers into his arms. "Just give me a moment."

  
“I think you’re going to need more than a moment,” Duck tells him, poking at a dropped map with the toe of his sneakers.

  
He doesn’t move to help though, watching Indrid with an odd sort of amazement as the tall man cleans out the front of the truck. He felt like he should be concerned, but as Indrid shifts through the mess, it becomes clear that half of the crushed balls were actually plain sheets of paper with thin, black ink sketches. Unwrapping one that Indrid drops on one of his trips, he unfolds it to find an almost painfully detailed drawing of the entrance to an aquarium.

  
“It’s rude to snoop,” Indrid says, plucking the paper out of his hands.

  
Duck scoffs, but doesn’t try to take it back.

  
“Are you an artist?” Duck asks, using the opened door of the truck to haul himself inside.

  
Indrid laughs, a wheezy sort of sound, shaking his head.

  
“It’s just a hobby,” he tells him, sliding into the driver’s seat and starting the engine.

  
15/06/2002 11:27am

  
Duck didn’t even think to pack swimsuit, so digging through his bag, he found some plain black shorts and an old baggy t-shirt and gave up. It was too hot to be stressing about if Indrid thought it was weird. Or maybe he was stressing out a little bit, pacing in the stall of the bathroom. He never even liked going swimming.

  
He groans, but opens the stall door anyway, it’s not as if he had even really changed clothing anyway. Plus, he was not going to be seeing any of these people in a long time after this. Never, if he was lucky.

  
Indrid is moving towards the washrooms before Duck has even fully opened the door, meeting him just off the steps. Duck was a little surprised, had hardly expected him to stick around after he took so long changing. Not an unpleasant surprise at least, especially when Indrid hands him a carefully rolled towel. Indrid himself is wearing a full body sports swimsuit, dark blue with black lines running along the seams. Now unobscured by his clothing, Duck could see a necklace with a deep orange stone hanging from Indrid’s neck. It’s beautiful, but Duck’s attention is quickly drawn away as he realized just how many people were around them.

  
“It’s quite busy,” Indrid tells him as they drift down the stone path towards the water. “But we can move further away if you want.”

  
Duck shrugs and tries not to stress about if Indrid could read his mind. If he could, he made no further indication of it as they move down into the hot sands of the beach. The clearing was scattered with families, parents sitting under the shade of umbrellas as their kids stomped around in the shallows. There were teenagers suntanning, others far in the water, shrieking as they splashed each other. It looked like every other beach that Duck had ever been on.

  
Duck does end up leading them further down the expanse of sand, at least away from the yelling and the splashing. Indrid following diligently until they’re far enough away that Duck feels a little less like everyone was watching him.

  
They roll out their towels, but before they can make it to the water, Indrid produces a bottle of sunscreen from his bag.

  
“I burn very easily,” he admits, and looking at the already reddening pale skin of his nose, Duck believes him.

  
Duck had never been one to burn, but accepts the lotion when Indrid hands it to him. Always better to be safe then sorry.  
The water is pleasantly cold but Indrid makes a face as they walk through the shallows, a shiver racking through his body at the change of temperature despite the heat of the sun still beating down on them. Duck, on the other hand, sighs a breath of relief as they tread into the depths, leads Indrid out into the tides until the waves are lapping just below his collar. On Indrid, the water looks shallow, but he doesn’t make any sort of move to go any deeper.

  
Instead, he takes a deep breath, and without further warning, dunks under the water. Duck jumps away from the resulting splash, and when Indrid rises back out of the water the first words out him mouth are a mumbled curse.

  
“That’s cold,” Indrid grumbles, just rises no higher out of the water than his shoulders.

  
“Well most people try to get used to the water before jumping in,” Duck tells him, slowly letting himself sink down to his neck as if to prove his point.

  
“It’s better to just get it over with!” Indrid insists, sounding indignant as he raises a hand to send a small splash of water Duck’s way.

  
Duck huffs a laugh, wrinkling his nose as the water hits him and saying

  
“Then don’t complain when you do it.”

  
Indrid hums in response, and the next few moments are spent just relaxing under the gentle push and pull of the waves. Duck lets himself float, eyes closed, just taking in the sensation of not feeling like he’s being slowly being cooked alive under the sun’s rays. He can hear Indrid moving, but it’s not until he speaks does Duck open his eyes again.  
As he blinks his eyes open, he finds that he can only just see Indrid’s eyes, as if the man was sitting on the lake’s bottom.

  
“So where are you heading, anyway?” Indrid asks, peeking his mouth above the water.

  
“I honestly have no idea,” Duck tells him, tipping his head back to watch the clouds drift past. “Just away from here.”

  
Indrid hums in acknowledgement before sinking back down under the water, his hair a white swirl around his head. He floats down there for a while, almost too long, and when he comes back up, he seems to have made a decision.

  
“You could ride with me for a while,” he offers, and Duck laughs, digging his nails into the soft flesh of his arm.

  
“I don’t know,” Duck says, turning back to face the white haired man. “I don’t have a lot to pay you for gas and stuff.”

  
He doesn’t say that he wasn’t sure that he would make very good company, that he had never travelled out of his own neck of the woods. He doesn’t tell him that he was scared that Indrid would get bored with him quickly. That he had never been to the vast amounts of places Indrid has, didn’t have any interesting stories.

  
“Don’t worry about that, I’m going to be on the road anyway,” Indrid shrugs, then holds up a finger. “But, travelling with a stranger can be weird, so how about we go to lunch first?”

  
“Only if you want to,” Duck tells him, digging his food into the mud of the lake.

  
“Then we shall go,” Indrid announces.

  
15/06/2002 1:46pm

  
The restaurant Indrid stopped at was an indie sort of café, buzzing with late afternoon activity. Busy, but not enough to worry about any sort of wait. There wasn’t much to choose from on the menu in terms of food, mostly pizza and sandwiches, although their drink options were extensive. It covered almost every kind of coffee Duck knew about, along with strangely titled cold drinks and desserts.  
He orders an iced coffee and sandwich, sticking to safe items he knew. Indrid, on the other hand, orders a smoothie, the nacho platter and three different kinds of desserts. The cashier seems surprised, but the tall man doesn’t seem the slightest bit shy about it. He pays and they settle down into one of small tables near the windows of the store.

  
“Yes,” Indrid says, even though Duck is confident he didn’t ask anything. “I can eat all of that.”

  
Duck laughs, and he wasn’t sure why he did.

  
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” he admits, holding his hands up in surrender.

  
Indrid blinks, shakes his head like getting rid of a thought, then grins at him.

  
“This one time I-”

  
Conversation flowed easily after that.

  
15/06/2002 3:18pm

  
As they leave the coffee shop, Duck is so tied up the conversation that he finds himself climbing back into the truck without thinking about it. It’s only when Indrid pauses, keys pressed into the ignition that Duck realizes he’d never given a straight answer to Indrid’s offer.

  
“Is this a yes?” Indrid asks, tapping restlessly against the steering wheel.

  
“Yes,” Duck echoes, listens to the roar of the truck’s engine and for the first time in a long time, feels like he’s making the right decision.

  
15/06/2002 10:32pm

  
Duck doesn’t remember how the topic of the wildlife within the Monongahela came up, but when he stops talking for a moment to take a drink of his water, he realizes that the sun has long disappeared over the horizon. With it comes the realization that he’d be talking this entire time, about nature, and he flushes red with embarrassment. He was probably boring Indrid and he was just too polite to say anything.

  
The more he thought about it, the longer he sat sipping at his water, the silence growing into something heavy. Before he can apologize for rambling though, Indrid asks him a quiet question about the animal he’d just finished talking about. Duck blinks at him, but as the information begins to bubble from his lips, he feels something warm fill his chest as he starts to talk again.

  
Later, when night has fallen and Duck could feel his eyelids getting heavy, Indrid tells him.

  
"You know so much about this stuff that you could probably work in the park service.”

  
"The park service? You mean those guys who run around in dumb outfits rambling about saving the trees? Isn’t that kind of lame?"

Duck scoffs, poking ideally at their dying fire.

  
“Well you already have one of those boxes checked.”

  
“Hey!”

  
Indrid wheezes a laugh and Duck waves his smoldering branch at him in a half hearted threat.

  
“No, but really,” Indrid insists. “I think you’d enjoy it.”

  
Duck offers no response beyond a shrug of his shoulders, he wasn’t the type to get his hopes up. Maybe if he ever went home he’d look into it, after all, it’s not as if he had any other big plans.

  
17/06/2002 7:43pm

  
Conversation ebbs and flows as time drifts by, silences filled by a staticky radio and the whine of the truck’s engine. Duck wasn’t much of a talker outside of nature, but Indrid didn’t seem mind carrying a conversation almost entirely alone, pleased with Duck’s occasional quiet comments amidst his rambling. Indrid had a sort of obsessive knowledge of a variety of topics, interrupting his own ideas as he spoke, tripping over his words as though his brain was running just a few steps ahead. Duck didn’t mind any of this, what truly shook him though was the way Indrid halted midsentence to turn the radio onto commercials.

  
“You love this song,” Indrid tells him as the hosts talk.

  
Duck stares blankly at him, but then the host’s voices fade away and the baseline starts.

  
“Oh,” Duck breathes, because this is his favourite song. “Can I turn it up?”

  
Indrid nods enthusiastically, then announces

  
“And you can sing!”

  
“Sing?” Duck echoes as he cranks the dial. "No, no, I can’t sing.”

  
“Neither can I!” Indrid announces, and spends the next hour thoroughly and passionately proving his own point.

  
Duck hesitates, but joins in after the first couple songs, because Indrid wasn’t even trying to sound good, and with no one to listen but each other, there was no reason for him worry about trying to either.

  
20/06/2002 3:41pm

  
They’re drifting through the downtown streets of Milchester when Duck spots a hair dresser’s shop. It’s a small building tucked between a bank and a restaurant, with a tired, blinking sign that says “open”. His steps slow as he tries to calculate how much money he has left in the bank, if there was enough to waste on this.

  
He doesn’t realize he’s stopped until Indrid gently bumps his shoulder into him, startling him out of his daze. Duck smiles sheepishly at him.

  
“Do you mind if I go and-”

  
“-get my hair cut?” Indrid finishes for him, following his gaze to the small shop, and then says “Of course, I’ll meet you back here in an hour.”

  
Duck wonders if he should ask him to stay, but instead just nods and makes his way over to the shop. A bell rings overhead as he enters, and there’s an old couple sitting together in two of salon chairs, each spun around to face one another.

  
“Oh hello there,” the woman calls, rising out of her seat. “How can we help you today?”

  
“I want to cut my hair off,” Duck says without ceremony.

  
“Are you sure dear? You have quite beautiful hair and-”

  
“I’m sure.”

  
20/06/2002 4:37pm

  
Every part of Duck’s body is tingling with a mixture of complete ecstasy and anxiety. It felt like everyone was watching him as he exited the shop, judging what they saw there.

  
“Oh,” Indrid breathes, eyes crinkling as his surprise melted into a gentle smile. “You look good.”

  
“Yeah?” Duck asks, giving him a jittery grin and reaching up to mindlessly drag his hands through the cropped strands.

  
“Yeah.”

  
They stand there for a moment, just staring at each other, and Duck thinks Indrid might say something else, but instead he raises one of the plastic bags in his arms and says

  
“I bought doughnuts.”

  
22/06/2002 6:08pm

  
They’re on the road when Duck gasps, so loud Indrid tenses, grip tightening around the truck’s steering wheel in anticipation for a threat.

  
“Oh my god,” Duck says, staring at Indrid like he’d just solved a particularly difficult equation. “You’ve been to Point Pleasant, you’re one of those moth man nerds!”

  
Indrid barks a laugh so suddenly that it startles them both, shoulders trembling a mirth he struggles to speak around.

  
“Yeah Duck,” he gasps between fits of laughter. “That’s me, a moth man nerd, you’ve-” he wheezes, “-you’ve caught me.”

  
Duck grins at him, seeming pleased with himself. He’d been wondering why that city’s name had sounded so familiar, and it would explain why Indrid had been through Kepler before. After all, one of the town’s few attractions _the Cryptonomica_ was nothing if not a disaster of cryptid memorabilia.

  
23/06/2002 10:47pm

  
“Do you have any tattoos?” Duck asks.

  
“No, I’ve never thought about it,” Indrid admits, turning the signal on the truck towards some town where they would be staying the night.

  
“Do you want to?”

  
At that, Indrid laughs.

  
“Are you telling me that you, Duck Newton, of all people, want to get an impulse tattoo right now?”

  
“I’m just saying it would be sick,” Duck grumbles. “This wouldn’t even be my first one.”

  
“It would be permanent,” Indrid corrects, and resolutely does not ask about Duck’s other tattoos.

  
“I ran away from home approximately a week ago Indrid, this is arguably not my worst plan.”

  
“And what, may I ask, would you be getting a tattoo of?”

  
“A du-”

  
“Do not finish that sentence.”

  
“God, buzzkill much. You could get your ears pierced!”

  
“I am not getting my ears pierced.”

  
25/06/2002 11:56am

  
“What’s the plan today?” Duck asks, climbing into the passenger side of the truck.

  
Indrid hums, as if he was considering his options, then announces.

  
“Aquarium, and then the science center.”

  
“A man after my own heart,” Duck says, pressing his hand to his chest.

  
Indrid blows him a kiss and Duck’s face burns all morning.

  
25/06/2002 11:56am

  
Indrid spends all his time staring at the animals, fascinated by each one as if he’d never seen them before. Points out his favourites, quietly mumbles a mixture of compliments and just quiet excited noises to each of the animals. His attention was easy to pull around the room, but he doesn’t try to rush Duck either, lets him read all the small informational signs beside each of the exhibits. Listens to Duck tell him each fact with a hardly contained captivation and in return, Duck listens to his excited chatter.

  
It takes them hours to make their way through the displays, and they’re stumbling through the crowds towards the exit when Duck’s steps slow. He doesn’t remember when Indrid took his hand, but now he finds himself pulling Indrid to a stop, trying to get a better look over the shoulders around him.

  
There was a sign on the wall directing them down a long glass hallway that announces a butterfly room, claiming to have dozens of species inside that they could go in and see up close. When Indrid follows his gaze he lights up, and any sort of doubt Duck had disappears.

  
They enter together but Indrid wanders away to go look at something and Duck doesn’t chase after him, letting himself carefully drift through the room. He moves slowly, doesn’t want to risk stepping on any of the butterflies, watching them flutter through the room. Dozens of species, many he’d never seen before.

  
He’s leaned over to examine one of the smaller butterflies, watching its petit wings flutter. Phyciodes tharos, the pearl crescent butterfly. A plain, local species, but beautiful nonetheless, and while Duck wanted to reach out and touch it, he restrained. It was too delicate to risk damaging it’s small form.

  
Behind him, there's a buzz of activity, laughing and the sound of photos being taken. Curious, if not a little self conscious, Duck turns around and immediately begins laughing along. Indrid, was sheepishly smiling back at him, arms held carefully away from his body, covered in butterflies.

  
“I think they like you, moth man,” Duck says,  
Indrid grins at him as one of the handlers carefully coaxes one of the small insects off of his shoulders, only for them to fly back to instead cling to his hair.

They were going to be there a while.

  
26/06/2002 10:45pm

  
They were sitting in front of the television of their hotel room, but while Indrid is watching the screen, Duck is watching him.

  
Indrid’s hair is still dripping as he pulls the brush through the ivory strands, tugging with the mindless roughness of someone who has had long hair for too long. Each tangle draws a twitch of his brow, and Duck finds himself wincing in familiarity.

  
Duck remembers foolishly offering to braid it, but this close, he can smell the sharp peppermint of Indrid’s shampoo, and his hands hover for what feels like too long before he begins to card his fingers through the strands. Indrid’s hair was soft, still warm from the shower, and Duck lets himself just run his fingers through it a few times before he actually parts it. Indrid leans back further when he starts to braid, and Duck is almost overwhelmed by their proximity.

  
“Am I pulling to hard? I can be more gentle,” Duck blurts, dropping Indrid’s hair.

  
“You’re fine, feels nice,” Indrid tells him around a content sigh.

  
As Duck feels a flush rise to his cheeks, he is suddenly grateful that he was sitting behind the other man. Thanking the world for small mercies, he pulls Indrid’s hair back into the divisions and begins the braid again. This time, he more then takes his time, going as slowly as possible without arising suspicion just to prolong this moment of serenity.  
Indrid was quiet during this entire process and when Duck finally does tie off the braid, he doesn’t move. Instead, he leans back, sinking against Duck’s chest, and tucking his head into his shoulder. His eyes are closed, but he is not asleep yet, breath warm against Duck’s neck.

  
“We should go to bed,” he murmurs, the vibrations of his voice making Duck shiver.

  
“Yeah,” he nods, but wishes they could stay this way for the rest of the night.

  
Indrid doesn’t move for another moment, then sits up and crawls out of Duck’s lap to go bury himself in his cocoon of blankets. Duck shuts the television and lights off before crawling onto his side of the bed. He stares at the ceiling long after Indrid falls asleep, and tries not to think too hard about what would happen if he moved closer.

  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  
Indrid’s hair is wavy for two days after and every time Duck sees it, he can feel the press of Indrid’s back to his chest. His heart aches.

  
28/06/2002 9:03am

  
When Duck wakes up, his body is sluggish, squirming away from Indrid's cold hands and tangling his body further in the warmth of the scratchy blanket. The sun's light comes through the tent as a bright green, shadows shifting over it as the trees sway. Duck presses his face into his pillow, mumbling incoherently in response to whatever Indrid had just said.

  
He hears the tent's zipper being pulled open and flinches from the cool morning breeze, curling up smaller. He can't even pull his tired eyes open, and drifts back to sleep.

  
When he wakes up next he's sitting in the truck with no memory of getting up. His feet are cold, covered in the cling of morning dew and dirt. He can hear the crunch of a dirt road beneath the truck's tires, slouches down with the blanket he's managed to hang on to, and let's the world fall away.

  
"Duck," Indrid calls, poking insistently at his sides.

  
Duck grunts, blinking a few times to pry his eyes open. As the world draws into focus, he finds that the truck is stopped, parked in front of a small coffee shop.

  
"'m up," he grumbles, throat still raspy from sleep.

  
Indrid makes him leave the blanket behind, to at least put some shoes on, and then draws him into the coffeeshop with the promise of caffeine. Duck orders without thinking, thanking the waitress for the steaming cup before beginning to fill the black liquid with sugar. Across the table, Indrid does the same.

  
Or at least, Duck thought he was doing the same.

  
It takes Duck three packages of sugar to realize that Indrid didn't order a coffee.

  
"What are you doing?" Duck asks, watching as Indrid stirs the sugar into his water.

  
"I'm making sugar water," Indrid tells him, as if it was the most normal thing. "Do you want to try it?"

  
"No I don’t want to- what are you? A hummingbird?"

  
There's a pause and Indrid raises his eyes to meet Duck's, pursing his lips around a grin as Duck realizes.

  
"It’s because you’re a moth,” Duck whispers, eyes wide.

  
Indrid snorts, raising his glass to his mouth.

  
“Yes, Duck, it’s obviously because I’m a moth.”

  
30/06/2002 3:47pm

  
By all means, the stuffed animal was hideous, which was exactly why Duck wanted it. It had too big of eyes and its feet were two different sizes, a monstrosity uglier than any mother could love.

  
“It’s cute,” Duck announces, holding up the plush beside his face and doing his best rendition of a pout.

  
“It’s terrifying is what it is,” Indrid tells him, refusing to turn away from where he was browsing actual groceries. Which is what they’d actually come here for, Duck.

  
Duck gives the toy a squeeze, letting the piercing squeak echo through the department. Indrid sighs, moving away from his travelling companion to head into the next aisle. Duck is relentless though, trailing just behind him with the toy, squeezing it every once in a while just to remind Indrid that he still had it.

  
As they reach the last aisle in the department, Indrid sighs, turns to Duck and holds his hand out for the plush. Duck squints his eyes at him cautiously, gives the toy another squeeze, then gently places it into Indrid’s hand.

  
“You’re a monster,” Indrid tells him, tossing the ugly thing into the cart.

  
“Hell yeah!” Duck shouts, and Indrid can’t find it in himself to actually be mad.

  
29/06/2002 7:29pm

  
They were on the road for hours, passing fields, houses, lives. Nothing but uninterested observers of the stories of thousands written into the seams of the streets they drive. Duck wonders every time they pass through a city what would happen if he asked Indrid to let him off. What kind of life he would lead, if it would be different then the one he had in Kepler, or perhaps he would fall into old routines. He never asks Indrid to stop, just watches the world fly by in a blur of colours.

  
"What's it like, where you're from?" Duck sighs, watching the corn fields roll past in green waves.

  
Indrid hums, then turns down the radio. In the loneliness of plains, the world is quiet, as if they were the last two men on earth. When Indrid starts talking, Duck's breath pauses, pulled still as if even exhaling would drown out his voice.

  
"It was beautiful, " Indrid sighs, and then smiles at Duck like they're sharing a secret. "Almost as beautiful as you."

  
Duck snorts so suddenly he startles them both, and then Indrid is laughing at him as he scrambles to roll down the window to cool is rapidly warming face. The world draws back into focus all at once as the wind whips past his ears. Indrid is laughing at him, but Duck can’t find it in himself to be angry, chest warm with the compliment. Maybe Indrid was hiding something, but in this moment, Duck doesn’t worry about it.

  
30/06/2002 11:32am

  
They’re in a department store, drifting mindlessly down the aisles when Duck stops, laughs, and holds up massive, bright red glasses.

  
“For you,” he says, holding them out to Indrid.   
The other man slides them up his nose and drags his hand through his hair like a model, struggling around his own grin as he asks

  
“How do I look?”

  
“Like a fucking moth,” Duck howls, having no qualms with making his amusement known despite the affronted look the sales associate was giving them.

  
Indrid buys the glasses.

  
02/07/2002

  
Indrid is sitting on the countertop of the motel’s bathroom, swinging his legs to the music drifting from the radio. He doesn’t seem to know the song, but does his best to whistle along anyway. There was no real reason for him to be sitting in here, but when Duck had announced that he was going to get ready for bed, he followed to brush his teeth and never left. Duck didn’t mind the company, something about it feeling oddly domestic, making his chest feel warm.

  
As Duck tries to move past him towards the doorway Indrid lazily draws him in with the bend of his legs until they were comfortably laced over his back, just above his hips. Duck sighs, but doesn't try to stop his foolishness. Indrid grins, and now that he was close enough, wraps his arms around him, leaning forwards until he could rest his head just at the base of Duck's neck. Goosebumps made him shiver, but were hardly the focus when Indrid began to jauntily force him into a sort of dance, bouncing back and forth in to the beat

  
They’re almost the same height at this level, and Indrid’s still humming that stupid song, trying to make Duck sway along with him. Duck doesn’t even try to resist, letting himself be pulled side to side in a terribly offbeat sort of dance. They do this for a while, just bouncing along, but Duck is tired, and he does need to wash his face before bed. He opens his mouth to say something, but then Indrid moves in, pulling them both to a stop and kissing him. They both taste like mint, and Duck is at a loss of where to put his hands, but Indrid doesn’t seem to mind.

  
When he pulls back, he seems almost shy for the first time, smile wobbly as he stares down at Duck. The other man doesn’t say a word, just moves back in to kiss him again, and again, until they both lose count.

  
03/07/2002 6:43am

  
The first thing that Duck notices when he wakes up, other then it’s far too early in his opinion, is that the morning sun is peaking through the thin, white curtains of the motel and shining directly in his eyes. The second is that he is very hot, even though the heavy covers had been long been kicked off the end of the bed. The third thing, and perhaps the most important part of the equation, was that Duck was nowhere near his side of the bed, and that the pillow he was valiantly trying to escape the sun in, was actually Indrid’s chest. Indrid, who had is arms wrapped around him and was grumbling quietly, still half-asleep.

  
It’s then that Duck is struck by the realization that last night had happened, that the kiss in the bathroom, and all the kisses afterwards, were not a fable generated by his own longing. Settling back down, he turns his face from the sun and goes back to sleep.

  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*

  
They don’t go anywhere that day, order-in cheap pizza and watch grainy old movies on the staticky television. Between lazy kisses and movie critiques, Duck naps, and he doesn’t dream of anything at all.

  
04/07/2002 8:07am

  
“Have you ever been to the ocean?” Indrid asks him the next morning, lazily dragging his fingers through Duck’s bedhead.

  
“No,” Duck admits, and then smiles, because he knows exactly what Indrid is thinking.

  
05/07/2002 4:32pm

  
Duck had always been a good swimmer, he’d practically grown up in the water. Lakes, rivers, pools, whatever was available, he’d swam in it. None of this prepared him for the ocean. For the endless expanse of blue so large it’s waves reach up to kiss the sky.

  
From the truck, catching glimpses between the city's buildings, the ocean had been beautiful. This close, Duck was almost overwhelmed by the sheer size of it. He's never felt this small in his life, so insignificant. He was not chosen, there was no fate to worry about here. To the ocean, he was just one of millions that treaded through its waters.

  
“So?” Indrid says, having already stepped into the water. “You want to go for a swim?”

  
Duck hums, but accepts Indrid’s hand, letting the waves wash over his ankles. The ocean felt like the unknown, dangerous in its unpredictability, but for the first time in years, Duck felt no fear.

  
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

  
The next few days passed in a soft haze, but like most good things, it would come to an end.

  
06/07/2002 2:59am

  
Duck wakes up with a gasp, reaching up to grab at his burning throat. He coughs even though there is no smoke in his chest, convulsing with every violent hack. His heart pounds in this chest, and with every beat, heat seems to roll over him, sweltering against his sweat soaked skin. It is dark around him, and he almost jumps straight into the air when the hotel door opens from the outside and a figure enters. Too panicked to move, he watches with suddenly bated breath as they turn to look at him.

  
“Duck!” Indrid blurts, holding a water bottle in his hands. “You’re awake!”

  
Duck says nothing at all, breath a quiet pant in the silence of the room. All at once, he feels exhausted. Collapsing back against his pillow, he throws his arm across his burning eyes and tries to stop shaking. This wasn’t supposed to happen, all of this was supposed to stay in Kepler where it belonged.

  
“Hey,” Indrid murmurs, and Duck can feels the bed sink down beside him.

  
Duck offers a grunt in reply, wishing he could just sink into the bed and disappear. Indrid was persistent though, reaching out to coax him back up, pulling him into his arms. He doesn’t try to ask Duck to explain, just traces cold fingers along Duck’s back until he stops shaking.

  
Later, as they lay in the darkness of the room, tangled in each other’s arms, Duck feels the hot flush of shame fill his veins.

  
“Well aren’t I just the biggest loser,” Duck whispers.

  
Indrid scoffs hardly dignifies than with a response beyond a grumbled

  
“Go to sleep, Duck.”

  
8/07/2002 8:54am

  
When they leave the ocean behind, Indrid drives with a certainty of someone with a destination in mind, but when Duck asks, Indrid just smiles and shakes his head. It was a surprise.

  
8/07/2002 2:04pm

  
The tattoo parlor is tucked between a flower shop and a clothing store, so small that Duck almost doesn’t see it. It’s not until they’ve parked in front of it and Indrid is looking at him expectedly does he spot it. He blinks, looks at Indrid, then back at the shop. Before he can ask, Indrid says

  
“I made the appointment already, they’re waiting for you.”

  
“No way,” Duck whispers, and when Indrid grins he says it again. “No way! There’s no way you, Mr. Impulse-Tattoos-Are-A-Terrible-Idea-Duck, booked me a tattoo appointment.”  
Indrid laughs at Duck’s terrible impression of his voice, shakes his head.

  
“I did not say that,” he corrects. “I just said maybe you should-"

  
Duck leans over the truck’s console and presses his lips to Indrid’s before he can finish. When he draws back, it’s only far enough to whisper a quiet thank you against Indrid’s lips before he kisses him again.

  
8/07/2002 2:17pm

  
Duck didn’t think through a lot of his tattoos, but the decision came easily the minute he laid eyes on the small delicate lines of a daffodil. When the tattoo artist sees his selection she smiles bittersweetly.

  
“Do you know the meaning of that?” She asks him as she carefully runs a sanitizing wipe down his arm.

  
“Oh,” Duck pauses, winces. “Not really? Should I have?”

  
She laughs.

  
“No, it’s not important. My girlfriend runs the flower shop next door so she knows them all, do you want to know?”

  
Duck shrugs, better to know if it was something bad before it was already on his arm.

  
“Uncertainty,” she tells him, and he feels something cold fill his veins. “But also new beginnings and…” she winks at him. “Love.”

  
Duck takes a deep breath and says

  
“You know what? That sounds about right.”

  
8/07/2002 3:36pm

  
When Duck emerges from the room, he’s shaken to find that Indrid was not there waiting for him. He moves to check through the glass to see if the truck is still there, but the woman behind the desk calls out to him.

  
“He’s in the back,” she tells him.

  
Duck pauses.

  
“Doing what exactly?”

  
The woman’s smile turns to a grin.

  
“He said it was a surprise.”

  
When Indrid comes out, his hair is pulled back into a ponytail, revealing a set of small golden rings hanging from his earlobes.

  
“No way,” Duck whispers, reaching out to tilt Indrid’s face each way to get a better look.

  
“You said they’d look good,” Indrid says, eyes fond as Duck stares at him.

“And I was right.”

  
Indrid laughs at him, but his face has turned a soft pink at the compliment.

  
“And your tattoo?” He asks, taking Duck’s hand and turning it over to reveal the tight bandage just below the crook of his elbow.

  
“It’s a surprise,” Duck says and when Indrid looks like he’s about to protest Duck points to the instructions the artist had given him. “It’s the rules.”

  
8/07/2002 8:44pm

  
Hours later, when Duck finally pulls the bandage back to reveal the tattoo, Indrid kisses him until neither of them can think.

  
10/07/2002 9:37pm

  
Duck leans down to spit out his toothpaste, and is shaken when he rises and finds an imposing figure looming over him. Just like that, an anchor has dropped onto his stomach, dragging him down to earth.

  
“Jesus Christ Minerva, can’t you give a man a little privacy?” Duck grumbles, wiping his mouth.

  
“What is this place?” Minerva demands, striding around the small bathroom. “This is not your normal chambers!”

  
“God, it’s a hotel? In uh- now, I’m going to honest, I didn’t even look at the name.”

  
“You cannot run from your fate Duck Newton!”

  
Feeling like a child with his hand stuck in the cookie jar, Duck hunches his shoulders. The warmth of embarrassment is uncomfortably heavy in his stomach, making him finally turn around to face her.

  
“Look, I’m not- or okay, maybe I am. A little bit. But I’m not destiny’s plaything, I’m allowed to have a life,” he tells her, lacing his fingers in front of him.

  
Minerva crosses her arms in from her chest, staring down her nose at him like a disapproving parent. It was a look he’d seen from his own parents too many times, and the hot flush of shame boils his blood into something sharper, something angrier.

  
“Duck Newton, you were chosen to preform your duty-”

  
“You don’t get to make that decision for me!” Duck snaps. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

  
Minerva recoils, but this was not Duck’s first outburst in the long years of their communication, and she was not foolish enough to believe it would be the last.

  
“Someday you will learn to harness that anger inside you for something greater,” Minerva tells him diplomatically, before disappearing once again.

  
Duck is more tired then he’d been before, not even bothering to finish the rest of his nightly routine. He rinses his toothbrush, and avoids looking himself in the eyes.

  
When he exits the bathroom, he finds Indrid sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed, staring at the television, but not really watching. It’s eerie the way his unfocused eyes stared, the clinical white of the hotel lights making the hallows of his cheeks look sharper. Duck can feel like the hairs rising on the back of his neck as he tucks his toothbrush back into his backpack. What was wrong with his scene hit him all at once as the sound of the zipper tears through the room.

  
The silent room.

  
The television’s sound is off and Duck knows all at once that Indrid heard, if not all of his side of the conversation, then enough of it. The rush of dread is cold in his veins, his heart dropping into his stomach chased by the draining from his face. Duck doesn’t know what to say. He has certainly said enough already.

  
Indrid sighs, and Duck braces himself, knows what comes next. What has always come next when people found out that Duck could hear something that they couldn’t hear, see something they couldn’t see.

  
“What is going on?” Indrid gently asks, but he might as well have screamed it for the way every syllable rocks Duck.

  
It feels like an accusation, and Duck is panicking because he doesn’t want Indrid to know. Doesn’t want him to look at him differently.

  
“Nothing! I uh- just talk to…” Duck draws the sound out, trying to find a way to finish the sentence without freaking Indrid out. “myself?”

  
Nailed it in one.

  
“Duck,” Indrid says, and then seems to hesitate, grimacing. “You know you can trust me, right?”

  
“Indrid… I know,” Duck tells him, and he means it. “I know I can, but just- uh,” he takes a breath. “I just don’t want to talk about it.”

  
Indrid nods, rising from the bed and moving to pull him into his arms. Duck just rests his face against Indrid, feels the gentle way Indrid traces lines against the small of his back.

  
“It’s okay,” Indrid mumbles “How about we go to bed instead?”

  
Duck nods, and in the morning, Indrid doesn’t ask.

  
12/07/2002 11:21pm

  
The air is cool around them, the only sound the distant sway of the trees.

  
"Hey," Duck calls. "What day is it anyway?"  
Without opening his eyes, Indrid mumbles  
"July twelfth.”

  
Duck jolts, sitting up so fast the world spun around him.

  
"Shit," he hisses, smacking his hands over his face as a sick sort of horror settles in his stomach.

  
“What is it, Duck?”

  
“It’s my sister’s birthday tomorrow,” Duck says quietly, and barks a humourless laugh.

“We used to always go camping in the Monongahela. She liked astronomy, memorized all the constellations when she was younger.”

  
Indrid nods, and Duck takes it as indication to continue.

  
“She still lives at home, she’s in her final year of high school, we… we haven’t talked in a while.”

  
“You sound like you miss her.”

  
“Yeah, I uh, guess I really do, we were close.”

  
The ache in his chest tightens into a coil, and Indrid sits up, seeming to know where this was going before Duck did. He stares down at him for a moment, hair falling in a pale cascade over his shoulders. Duck couldn’t make out the look of his eyes under the faint light of the stars, but he can tell Indrid is thinking hard.

  
“Duck, you know that I understand if-”

  
“No! No… Indrid, don’t ask me that right now. I just want to enjoy the night. Forget I even brought it up.”

  
Indrid seems to hesitate, but lays back down, staring up at the sky as if imploring it to give him answers. Duck doesn’t like how faraway he looks in this moment, how in the dark of the night he looks older, more tired.

  
“Tomorrow,” Duck tells him, settling back down. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  
Indrid nods but doesn’t look at him, and it’s clear that there’s no saving the night’s mood. Instead, Duck watches the stars and wonders if he should’ve ever left Kepler.

  
13/07/2002

  
They do not talk about it in the morning. Instead, Indrid hands Duck a roll of quarters and makes him get out at the first payphone they can find. There’s a sick feeling in Duck’s stomach as he approaches, but he can feel Indrid’s steady gaze on his back, insistent. So he dials the familiar number, prays to anyone out there that no one will pick up. There’s a click, and Duck doesn’t know why he ever bothered, but is then hit by the relief of hearing a young voice pipe up over the line.

  
“Hello?”

  
“Hey Jane, it’s Duck,” he says softly, and there’s a weakness in his knees from hearing her voice after so long.

  
"Duck? Where are you? I’ve called your house like everyday! Don't tell me you forgot my birthday?"

  
"No! No, I've just been, uh, busy, kid," Duck stammers, straightening his back. "I was actually just calling to say happy birthday."

  
"Well gee thanks I guess. More importantly though, Mom wants to know if you're still taking me camping? You better be, I know they bought me a telescope and I need to use it."

  
Duck sucks in a pained breath, and then blurts

  
"Yeah! Yeah, of course I am, I'll swing by tonight."

  
“You’re the best,” she says, and he can practically see her grin.

  
Before her can tell her goodbye, she begins on a tangent about her summer adventures, and he doesn’t have the heart to stop her. He uses every quarter Indrid had given him before he finally tells her goodbye.

  
Indrid doesn't say anything when Duck gets back into the truck, but the radio is off, and when they turn onto the highway, it's in the direction of Kepler. Duck sighs into the silence, leans his head against the window, and tries not to feel like he’s making a mistake.

  
They drive for a long time in silence, neither sure what to say, knowing that nothing would ever be enough. There was no way to tell if this was love or just the desperate desires of two wayward ships, passing in the night. Only time would tell, and they had none of that at all. If Indrid knew what would come to pass, he didn’t say, and Duck could hardly think of anything at all. The only thing that he knew was that he needed to go home. Knew it with the same certainty that he knew Indrid needed to keep moving, could see it in the way his dark eyes were always searching for something on the horizon. Part of Duck wished that Indrid could find what he was looking for in him, longed to ask him to come home to his quiet apartment and to just stay. A bigger part of him could tell this was not the time.

  
They’d stopped for dinner in the same town they’d met, speaking idly between bites of cheap hamburgers. There wasn’t much to say, but they talked anyway, filling in the tense silence with murmurs of anything that would keep their minds in the now. They linger there, because there were not many more miles left in their journey before they have to part. Take new steps without the other beside them.

  
13/07/2002 6:43pm

  
“Let me off here,” Duck tells him, and Indrid must see the look in his eyes, because he doesn’t protest.

  
Turning his signal on, Indrid pulls slowly over to the side of the main road into Kepler, only a few meters from the welcome sign. In the evening light, the town is bustling with life, and everything about this scene is bone-achingly familiar. So familiar Duck is almost overwhelmed by the feeling that nothing has changed. Nothing would ever change. He could leave this town and never come back, and it would not so much as flinch at his absence.

  
He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Indrid whispers his name, exhales it like a prayer. Can’t seem to stop even as the other man leans awkwardly over the truck’s console just to hold him. It’s not even comfortable because Indrid’s glasses are digging into his neck and Duck has to lean forwards to let him get his arms around him, but in this moment he doesn’t think he’ll ever want to be held any other way.

  
“This is dumb as fuck,” Duck declares between shaky hiccupping breaths. “This was all just a shitty idea and I should’ve never said yes to your offer to go fucking swimming.”

  
Indrid laughs, and it sounds painful, choked off.

  
“I’m sorry,” he says, but Duck can tell he’s not sorry at all.

  
“You better be, you weird fuck-fucking moth man!”

  
Duck can tell that he’s shouting, but he can’t seem to stop himself, spitting a line of curses so sharply his grandma must be rolling in her grave. Indrid begins to laugh, genuinely, and Duck is finding it more and more difficult to be indignant. He gets quieter with each swear, winding down until all he can hear is Indrid’s laughter. Duck huffs, but before he can offer any sort of comment, Indrid leans up and kisses him sweetly.

  
“Better now?” Indrid asks, brushing the tears from Duck’s eyes.

  
“No,” Duck snaps, and tries not to feel like he’s sulking.

  
They sit in silence for what feels like hours, but is really only a few minutes, just holding, and being held. All too soon, Indrid sighs one last sound of amusement before he pulls away and sits back down into his seat. The radio is playing such a jaunty country tune its almost jarring, yet Duck doesn’t make any move to shut it off. Instead, he closes his eyes and listens as a familiar voice announces the weather and Kepler’s daily news. There would be clear skies tonight, perfect for star gazing, and this is what finally makes him get out of the truck.

  
Moving around to the driver’s side of the truck and onto the pavement of the highway, he holds Indrid’s gaze in silence for a moment. Inside, he finds himself fighting the need to say everything, to say anything, before something deep inside him tells him to turn away. Turn away before he breaks down again, climbs back into the truck and begs Indrid to take him away from here. He makes it only a few strides before he hears Indrid speak.

  
“Hey Duck,” he calls, making Duck turn around one last time. “ _You’re going to be amazing_.”

  
It sounds like a promise, perhaps it was a goodbye, but Duck can’t find it in himself to say anything at all. He nods, and wishes he knew what to say. He was as good at saying goodbye as he was at lying.

  
Part of him knows that it is no use, that he cannot run from the problems that are inside him. It was something, perhaps, Duck had always known. Something that he’d just never wanted to admit to himself. None of this had ever been because of Kepler, and none of his problems had disappeared when he was no longer there. Running away was not a permanent solution, but staring into Indrid’s eyes, he wishes it was.

  
Taking a deep breath, he gives Indrid a wobbly smile, watches as Indrid’s eyes crinkle fondly as he returns it with a lazy salute, and then he forces himself to walk away. He does not turn around when he hears the engine of the truck start, and tells himself that they would meet again someday. If the world could burden him with such an important fate, it could do this for him too.

  
\--------------------------------

  
He walks slowly down the streets of his home town, passes people whose names he can’t remember. They give him big waves, but no indication that they noticed his absence. For once, he waves back, doesn’t fault them for not knowing him when he never made the effort to know them.

  
He is almost into his building when he hears a cat’s meowing coming from an alley, and if Duck had one soft spot, it was definitely for animals. Backtracking a few steps, he takes a few steps between his building and the next to find two bright blue eyes staring at him from the ground. The cat cries again, and trots over to him, rubbing her face against his jeans.

  
Squatting down, he holds out his hand in a peace-offering, and after a few delicate sniffs, she rubs her head against that too. He huffs, sitting down fully before giving her soft white fur some strokes, startled when she crawls right into his lap and begins purring like a motor. Running his hand along the back of her neck, he finds no collar, and tries to tell himself that he should leave her be. For all he knows this cat has rabies, or a loving family waiting for her. Neither of these reasons are enough for him to leave her there. He tells himself that he would get her checked for a chip tomorrow, and gathers the petit ball of fluff into his arms and into his building.

  
She hardly moves in his arms, and certainly doesn’t protest, continuing to purr even as they climb the three flights of stairs up to his apartment. Duck is smitten already, but staring at the fading numbers of his door, he is suddenly struck with a familiar loneliness. It is as if the last two weeks never happened, as if he’d never left.

  
It’s too late to turn back now though, and taking a deep breath, Duck pushes the door to his apartment open—

  
“Duck Newton, where have you been young man?” Jane shouts in a mockery of their parents, and Duck is so startled that he almost drops the cat.

  
“How did you get in-”

  
Duck can’t even finish his sentence before Jane is throwing herself over the sofa and towards him.

  
“Where did you get a cat?” She demands, all too fast words and bright enthusiasm. “No- wait, what happened to your hair? Is that another tattoo? Who are you and where is my brother?”

  
“It’s, uh, a long story,” Duck tells her, and then laughs.

  
The biggest understatement of the century.

**Author's Note:**

> My partner for this work was @alec-draws on tumblr and I'll link their art as soon as I get the link !!


End file.
